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LIBRARY OF CONGRESS. 

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CHRIST LIFE 






REV. A. B. 'SIMPSON, 



PUBLISHED BY 

THE CHRISTIAN ALLIANCE PUB. CO., 

692 Eighth Aven^ue, 

New York. 






•5/:)^^^'' 



^^t: 



COPTBIGHTED, 1892, BY A. B. SiMPSON. 




CONTENTS. 



Chapter I. page. 

The Personal Christ, .... 5 

Chapter II. 
In Christ, . . . . . .27 

Chapter III. 
Christ in Us, . . . . , 37 

Chapter IV. 
Christ in Us. Causes and Effects, , . 5dt 

Chapter V. 
Abiding, •...•• 75 



Christ Life. 

'■Abide in me^ and I in you.'''' — John xv: 3. 



Chapter I. 



THE PEESONAL CHKIST. 

"i !"HE expression has been made to me by 
f a returned missionary, that in China 
and Japan thev are getting to find the dif- 
ference between Christians and the friends 

• 

of Jesus. For a time they were deceived 
by the name Christian. Every sailor and 
foreign resident in these parts called him- 
self a Christian, as distinguished from 
heathens. And so, as the natives found 
many of these men fairly outrivalling hea- 
then co"^ruption, they became disgusted. 
They said if these drinking, blasphemous 
sailors and grasping merchants are Chris- 
tians, we do not want Christianity. He 
said they were now calling true Christians 



6 CHRIST LIFE. 

Jesus' people, and all the others were merely 
Christians. They meant that these were 
Christ's friends and had His resemblance 
in person and character. This is the distinc- 
tion I would bring before you — the Chris- 
tian life and the Christ life. There is all the dif- 
ference between them that there is between 
a system of truth and a living person ; all 
the difference there is between ideas and liv- 
ing, loving hearts. Christian life raay be a 
hf e conformed or committed to certain prin- 
ciples of truth. But Christ life is a living 
thing and a divine thing. Christian life 
may be your own earnest attempt to imi- 
tate Christ, and act consistently with the 
teachings of His Word, but Christ life is 
Christ's own life in your heart and life, 
made real in you, and overcoming in you 
what your own strength could not over- 
come. This mav be a new thought to some, 
but let me tell you it is the oest thought in 
the universe It is nearly all I know that is 
effectual in the blessed Gospel ; that which 
brings into the heart ana life the Saviour 



THE PERSONAL CHRIST. 7 

Himself. Let us look at it more deliberately, 
and linger over some of the points we should 
not hasten past. 

PERSONALITY. 

The first thought that comes up in con- 
nection with this is the thought of person- 
ality. The things we value in history are 
not the records of events, the geographical or 
historical information, but what they reveal 
of the men and women that have lived. 
That which makes a country great is not its 
lofty mountains and beautiful plains, its 
magnificent scenery and its Eden-like cli- 
mate, for many of the fairest scenes of earth 
may claim all this, and yet they are waste 
and desolate for want of men. That which 
makes a country great is glorious men and 
women, far more than things or events, re- 
sources or incomparable advantages. That 
is what we cherish in our annals, — not our 
art, poetry and traditions and memories, but 
our heroes. 

And so again, if we come down to the 



8 ' CHRIST LIFE. 

nearer realm of our own life, what do we 
value most ? Not our houses and lands, our 
commerce and wealth, nor our earthly ad- 
vantages. You would give everything on 
earth for one frail little life for which others 
would not giv^e a farthing. There is more 
to you in one human heart than in all the 
world. And this morning your treasures 
are in your friends, those that have become 
in some sense your own. Personality, then, 
is the dearest and most precious thing in the 
world. 

THE PERSONAL GOD. 

And if this be so in secular things, now easy 
it is to rise to the thought of personality in 
God ! I am so glad He is revealed to us as a 
person, and not a doctrine — a living being 
that we can touch somehow with the suscepti- 
bility of our spirit, that we can take in the 
arms of trust and love, that we can know in 
the depths of our consciousness, a good, and 
glorious and divine realitv, even more than 
any other individual. The other day in Minne- 
apolis, I met a dear friend just recovering 



THE PERSONAL CHRIST. 9 

from the terrible snare of Christian 
Science, who had been under its power until 
her heart and spirit were almost drawn away 
from Christ. ^^How strange," she said, 
' that I never thought ; they taught me that 
Christ was a principle. I might as well try 
to love a grape vine on my wall as to 
love a principle. And with gladness and 
joy she added, ^'Oh, it is a person; He is 
my blessed Saviour. " Eead the story of His 
life, and back of the events shines out most 
vividly the Man Himself ; not only the char- 
acter that is so beautiful ; not only that 
crystallization of all that was wise, and gen- 
tle and lovely, but behind all that was the 
Christ Himself, the living One, whom our 
thought, our very consciousness can grasp 
and gather out of all the story. So vivid it 
is that even infidelity has been compelled to 
say that the most remarkable thing in the 
Bible and the hardest thing to explain away, 
is not the Bible itself, but the Christ in the 
Bible. 



10 christ life. 

Christ's individuality. 

So again, in His own words, no other man 
has left so much of Himself. Other men 
talk in the abstract; but He is always living 
and concrete ; it is always I. There are no 
other records of human utterances so full of 
the personal pronoun as the sentences of the 
Lord Jesus Christ. It would be disgusting ; 
it would be the most egregious egotism in 
anybody else but Jesus to find in every sen- 
tence the constant recurrence of I, I, I ; and 
yet it comes from Him with such a con- 
sciousness of His majesty, of His right to do 
it, with such a sense thrown upon you that 
He is entitled to speak of Himself, that the 
personality is greater than the truth He has 
revealed, and the truth would be valueless 
without Him behind it. And so you feel it 
is all right. Look at His address to His 
disciples : ^ ^I and my Father are one. I am the 
bread of life. I am the hght of the 
world. Without me ye can do nothing." 
It is the living Christ all through. 

And not only is it the historical Christ 



THE PERSONAL CHRIST. 11 

that stands out from His teaching, but it is 
the Christ who is as real and Hving still. 
It is not only a memory of the past ; a Christ, 
the most vivid person in the past, but it is 
the Christ who is still alive, and who, in- 
stead of being an historical figure, instead of 
being a cherished memory, is as near to-day 
as when He walked through Galilee, and 
taught and wrought His miracles. 

The healing of His seamless gobe , <Aa^^6 

Is by our beds of pain, 
We touch Him 'mid life's throng and press, 

And we are whole again. 

Of no one else is this true. Some believe 
that the spirits of the past are near. Men 
can talk of others who have crossed the 
ocean of time as coming back to us here; 
but we know there is something that sep- 
arates them from our touch, and our phys- 
ical humanity. But we know this Christ is 
still as real as when Mary touched His feet. 
We know that not only is that tender heart 
throbbing still, but those hands are still 
real. That face is still human. The flesh 



12 CHRIST LIFE. 

and bones are still tangible if we could draw 
near enough, and that Jesus Christ is a 
risen and immutable person, the same yes- 
terday, to-day and forever. His resurrec- 
tion has opened the tomb, and crystalHzed 
forever all that was true of Him then. And 
so this Sabbath morning as we gather 
round our communion table we know while 
we partake of these sacred emblems, that 
they are a reality, and not a memory only; 
that not only did He institute these memo- 
rials, but somehow His own hand is put- 
4 ting this cup to our lips, and making His 
flesh vital and actual to our physical and 
spiritual needs. 

It may be difficult for us to make Him as 
real as if we saw Him, but we know that 
in human affairs the absent can be real, the 
distant brought near. I know that while 
on the Pacific coast, as often as you gath- 
ered here, I was conscious of your presence, 
andj perhaps, you were of mine. I know 
as the usual services of the consecration 
hour were going forward there fell on me 



THE PERSONAL CHRIST. 13 

a sense of the prayer and the burdens that 
were coming to you, and almost a sense of 
the blessings that were making your hearts 
thrill; the needs brought to be relieved, and 
the joy and praise when the burdens rolled 
away. We were far apart, but space was 
annihilated; unity of thought and spirit 
made us one. And, if far apart on earth 
human hearts can meet, how much greater 
is His ability to make Himself real! 

This living Christ then, beloved, is not 
the person that was, but the person that \ 
still is your living Lord; intensely real this 
beautiful Sabbath morning to every heart 
that has a spiritual sense, and will allow 
Him to bring you a spiritual vision, and to 
know and to recognize your dear Brother. 
At Preston Pans, near Edinburgh, I looked 
on the field where in the olden days armies 
were engaged in contest. In the crisis of 
the battle a chieftain fell, wounded. His 
men were about to shrink away from the 
field when they saw their leader's form go 
down, and their strong hands held the 



14 CHRIST LIFE. 

claymore with trembling grip, and they 
faltered for a moment. Then the old 
chieftain rallied strength enough to rise on 
his elbow and cry: '^1 am not dead, my 
children, I am only watching you to see my 
clansmen do their duty. ' ' And so from the 
other side of Calvary He is speaking; we 
cannot see Him, but He says, ^^Lo, I am 
with you always, even to the end of the 
world;" and He puts it, ''I am;" an un- 
interrupted and continuous presence. Not 
'^ I will be," but the unbroken presence of 
Him who could not die, but still is with us 
forevermore. 

I pass from this thought of Christ's per- 
sonality > to notice how real this is made 
through all the account of redemption. Our 
salvation is grouped around this personal- 
ity, and not His teachings. The whole of 
creation is crystallized around it. This is 
an endless subject. The Old Testament is 
always pointing to the person who Avill 
come; ''The Lord will come and dwell 
among you." In the very morning of crea- 



THE PERSONAL CHRIST. 15 

tion it is the seed of the woman who is to 
come. To Abraham the promise is the seed 
of his hne. The person descending of his 
Hneage is the Hope of Jacob. To Moses the 
promise is a personal, hving prophet. And 
all through the inspired utterances as they 
grow more real and glowing, we find Him 
presented as a person. So gloriously did 
this shine out through their prophets, that 
they expected some wonderful Messiah; 
and they could not believe that little babe 
and the lowly carpenter could be the Coming 
One! 

Notice, too, how He speaks of Himself. 
He says,^^^God so loved the world, that He 
gave His only begotten Son, that whosoever 
belie veth in Him should not perish, but have 
everlasting life." And again, ^^This is 
eternal life," not that you go to heaven 
when you die, but ^Hhat you should know 
Christ." Eternal life is Jesus Himself. 
All through redemption it is a person. 
^'He that hath the Son, hath life." Not 
he that hath the church, the knowledge, 



16 CHRIST LIFE. 

the character, but ^^He that hath the Son 
hath hfe; and he that hath not the Son 
hath not hfe." ^^He who spared not his 
own Son but dehvered him up, shall he not 
also freely give us all things?" ^'Thanks 
be unto God for His unspeakable Gift." 

OUR UNION WITH HIM. 

Again, our Christian life is not regarded 
as a character, but Christ in us. Not Christ 
giving us life, but being life to us. Our 
human body is anatomized, and He is called 
the Head, and we the members. Can there 
be anything more beautiful? Why, the 
very existence of the members depends upon 
the head, and the head upon the body. 
This is a union so complete that one needs 
the other, and vice versa. And so we have 
the figure of growth, '^ rooted and built up in 
Him," growing in Him as the rootlets grow 
in the soil; the soil has no use without the 
roots, or the roots without the soil We 
are bound up in His being. So we have 
the figure of the building. What is the 



THE PERSONAL CHRIST. 17 

corner-stone without the superstructure ? 
So He says that we as hving stones are 
built up into Him who is the Head, to show 
forth the excellencies of ^'Him that hath 
called us out of darkness into His marvelous 
light." So again, Adam is used as a type 
of Him. Adam propagates a physical race, 
and transfers to them his qualities. Christ 
propagates a new race and transmits to ^ 
them His fullness and glory. There is as 
real a descent from Christ as there was 
from Adam. Our spiritual life comes as 
fully in Christ, as our physical life in Adam. 
And ^'as in Adam all die, so in Christ shall 
all live." So He is represented as the Head 
of the race. 

The vine and the branches are so familiar, 
it is not necessary to explain; only the 
branches and the vine are one. The \ine 
does not say, I am the central trunk run- 
ning up, and you are the little branches; 
but, I am the whole thing, and you are the 
whole thing. He counts us partakers of 
His nature. '^Ai)art from me ye can do 



18 CHRIST LIFE. 

nothing." It must be you and me to- 
gether. The husband and the wife, and 
many more figures contribute to this mar- 
velous Christ teaching, which has no par- 
allel, no precedent in any other teaching 
under the sun: that Christ is the life of His 
people, and that we are absolutely Hnked 
with and dependent upon Him. All other 
systems teach how much a man is and may 
become. Christianity shows how a man 
must lose all he is if he would come into full 
unity with Christ in His life. 

THE SOURCE OF SALVATION. 

So Christ is to us personally the source of 
salvation. Dear friends, it is not what you 
become that is going to save you, but how 
you become united to Jesus. Is there any- 
body here trying to work out a personal 
salvation? You cannot do it. Oh, touch 
Him, and His life enters you, and your 
standing becomes the same as His. 
blessed facility of ascending to the very v/ 
heights of glory, not by cKmbing, but 



THE PERSONAL CHRIST. 19 

stepping on this car of ascension. I had 
the pleasure, a few weeks ago, of crossing 
the Eocky Mountains about two-and-a-half 
miles above the level of the sea. It would 
have almost killed me to cross them on foot. 
There was a time when man had to cross 
over those heights by dizzy paths, but we 
only had to sit in our car and enjoy the out- 
look, and find ourselves eleven thousand 
feet above the sea. How beautiful ! Be- 
loved, you have not to cross the dizzy 
heights yourself, but at the door stands ^ 
One who is ready to transport you. Is 
there one here who wants to know the 
secret ? It is to become one with Christ. 
He has done His part, and only asks you 
to consent to fully receive Him. He is the 
ground of your salvation. It is not effort 
and struggle, but it is receiving Him in His 
hohness, in His power and victory, and 
letting Him transfer to you day by day, 
step by step, His own excellencies. His own i 
graces, grace for grace. ^^ Christ is made 
to you of God sanctification." 



20 CHRIST LIiaE. 

THE SOURCE OF HEALING. 

Or, shall we apply it to physical healing ? 
It is not your trying to tone it up by 
false stimulants. But it is by breathing 
intoit His strength; receiving from without 
and above the supernatural, vital forces 
that must uplift you because they do not 
come from you, but from Him that came 
to be our life, that we might ha- e it 
more abundantly. And even when He 
shall come again, we shall have nothing 
without Him. What would the millennial 
glory be with Christ left out ? Even there 
it is, ^'I will come again and receive you 
unto myself; that where I am, there ye may 
be also." 

I have just sketched this outline; now 
let me add these thoughts as we gather 
up the lesson. 

\. HIS FULLNESS. 

How wonderfully Christ is adapted to all 
this ; for we are told in these words of the 
epistle, that God has put all the fullness of 



THE PERSONAL CHRIST. 21 

the Godhead in Him. "In Him dwelleth 
all the fullness of the Godhead bodily." 
God has put in Christ everthing in Himself 
that man can ever need. God has just 
concentrated and personified in this blessed 
Man all his own strength, lo e, and help, 
for you and me. God could not get it to us ^ 
without this. Some one tells us how in the 
Vatican at Eome, there is a beautiful paint- > 
ed ceihng placed so high up that it is impos- 
sible to see it; the visitor strains his eyes in 
vain to it. A while ago to meet this diffi- 
culty, they constructed a mirror, so reflecting 
it to the floor, that all you have to do is to 
walk up to a little glass, and there is the 
scene; the minutest touches are there right 
under your eye; and yet it is in the dizzy 
heights above. So He took His glory, and 
beauty, and help, and put it down on the 
level of human ignorance and helplessness; 
He just put it all in the mirror, Jesus Christ, - 
and said, '^Look at it. Is there anything in 
God you need? There it is in miniature." 
And then He puts it in your hand, and says 



22 CHRIST LIFE. 

it is yours. I have put in Jesus all I am, 
and now I give Him to you, so you can 
claim Him for your own ; so you can feel that 
Christ does not own Himself, but is all 
yours; and as the mother has no right to 
keep back the nourishment of her breast 
from her child, so you have the right to 
draw from Christ the utmost need of your 
hungry hearts. 

^ . THE IDEAL MAN. 

Not only is this blessed Christ the treasury 
of God's riches, but He is the pattern and 
sample of what men ought to be. One man 
has lived right, and only one. With tender 
pathos God says in one of the prophets, '^I 
searched for a man; I looked for a man 
among all the people, and I found none." 
He looked for some one that could meet the 
requirements of human character, and found 
none. But at last there came One, and He 
looked again, and said with delight: '"• This is 
my beloved Son in whom I am well pleased." 
"Behold my servant whom I uphold; mine 



THE PERSONAL CHRIST. 23 

elect, in whom my soul delighteth." He met 
God's expectation, and became a pattern for 
all men. So there has lived one on earth who 
has idealized manhood and womanhood and 
childhood; the sample of a beautiful char- 
acter; of a woman's heart; of a man's man- 
hood ; a pattern for the workmen at the 
bench; for the preacher, for the teacher, for 
the friend, for the sufferer, for the tempted 
one; wherever a man may be placed Jesus 
has been. 

OUR VERY LIFE. 

And now this blessed Man is given to you. 
He says, '^Accept me; not as an example to 
follow afar off, but as a life to come into 
you, and impart to you His very nature, and 
make it second nature to your heart, sponta- 
neous in your choice, victorious in your will, 
and interwoven with all your emotional 
life." This is what is meant by the Christ 
life. Dear friends, this is the Christ that 
comes to you to-day, and offers His personal 
fullness and all-sufficiency. 



24 CHRIST LIFE. 

IN HARMONY WITH OUR NATURE. 

A lady asked me the other day, a thought- 
ful, intelligent woman who was not a Chris- 
tian, but had the deepest hunger for that 
which is right : ^^How can this be so and we 
not lose our individuality ? This will destroy 
our personality, and it violates our re- 
sponsibilities as individuals, I said. ^^Dear 
sister, your personahty is only half without 
Christ. Christ was made for you, and you 
were made for Christ, and until you meet 
you are not complete, and He needs you as 
you need Him." I said, ^^ Suppose that gas- 
jet should say 'If I take this fire in, the gas 
loses its individuality.'" Oh no, it is only 
when the fire comes in that the gas fulfills its 
very purpose of being. Suppose the snow- 
flake should say, ''What shall I do ? If I 
drop on the ground I shall lose my individ- 
uality. " But it falls and is absorbed by the 
soil, and the snowflakes are seen by-and-by 
in the primroses and daisies. It is a glor- 
ious individuality to lose ourselves and rise 
again in new life in Christ 



THE PERSONAL CHRIST. 25 

CREATED FOR HIM 

As we crossed over the immense plains, I 
was surprised at their extent and value. It 
took us days behind a swift engine to get 
over the barren plains of the great West. 
Day by day, nothing was seen but sand, and 
sage brush growing along the track. When 
I came to ask about it I found this was the 
most magnificent soil in the country ; where 
the sage brush grows, anything will grow; 
it is the test of good soil. The soil 
possesses the greatest fertihty. Only one 
thing was lacking. What is it ? Every 
once in a while we came to an oasis, the 
grass greener than you ever saw it here; 
and by-and-by we found the most fruitful 
regions in the world — the fruits of the tropics, 
the fig tree and the orange groves. What 
made the difference ? Why, as we walked 
around the farms we found a Httle ditch 
which had caught the mountain stream, and 
f ertiUzed the land by covering it with water. 
And sometimes we found the little fields 
where they had let the water in for a few 



26 CHRIST LIFE. 

days, aud everything would go on with the 
most astonishing fertihty. It needed but 
one thing to bring it out. So I have thought, 
you may have all the possibilities, but you 
come to nothing until you let in the water, 
and become fruitful. The desert needs the wa- 
ter, and the water needs the desert. You 
need Christ, and Christ needs you. It is 
this union, this abiding in Him , and He in 
you, which will bring forth much fruit, for 
He has said, ^^ Without me ye can do 
nothing.*' • 

This is enough to show you how natural 
and true this hf e is. Oh, again this morning, 
let us make room ; let us cease from every- 
thing but Him ; let us open wide the doors 
and let Him enter now. Only as He is our 
life, and links His own life with ours, shall 
there come forth the fruit of hohness and 
service which will glorify Him, bless the 
world, and make our life fulfill all its lost 
promise. 



Chapter II. 



IN CHEIST. 

^^AMde in me and Tin you.''^— John. i^:d. 



fHEEE are two sides from which our 
union with Christ is presented in the 
Scriptures ; they are best expressed by the 
Greek preposition ^^in." It gives us two \/ 
hemispheres of blessing. The first is/ 'in 
Christ," and the second is, "Christ in us. " 

They are different thoughts, but each is 
the complement of the other, and together 
they constitute this blessed Christ life of 
which we have been speaking. 

First, then, we are represented as in 
Christ. This speaks of what He is for us, 
as the other speaks of what He is in us. 
What is it to be in Christ ? It is to be repre- 
sented by Christ, to have Him stand for us, 
and enter into all the benefits and privileges 
of His standing. We are in Adam inasmuch 



28 CHRIST LIFE. 

as he is our head as a race. We are in our 
political representatives in the same sense, 
as they stand for and represent us. And so 
Christ Jesus is for us in a sense a represen- 
tative, and His acts in a measure become ours; 
He acts for us rather than for Himself. 

Let us look at five or six things that come 
to us from our being in Christ. 

OUR SINS ARE JUDGED. 

1. In Christ our sins have been judged. 
His judgment on the cross was for the sins 
of His people. He could say in that dark 
hour, '^ Now is the judgment of this world." 
Our sins were on Him, and in Him have been 
put away, judicially dealt with, visited with 
the penalty we should have borne, the shame 
and the suffering which we deserved. Enter- 
ing into union with Him by trusting Him and 
taking Him for our Saviour, saves us from 
tne judgment we deserved. This is the 
first result of being in Christ, ^^in whom we 
have redemption through His blood; the for- 
giveness of sins according to the riches of 



m CHRIST. S9 

grace. '' ^' There is, therefore, now no con- 
demnation to them who are in Christ Jesus." 
^'He that heareth my word, and beheveth 
on Him that sent me, hath everlasting Uf e, 
and shall not come into condemnation, but 
is passed from death unto life." 

WE ARE JUSTIFIED. 

2. Again, if we are in Christ we are jus- 
tified through His righteousness. Not only- 
have our sins been put away, but our lack 
of righteousness. He has met the law which 
we could not obey, and put His own merit 
and righteousness to our account, and we 
can stand in the same place as though we 
had kept the law, and manifested the same 
sweet spirit which He manifested without a 
single flaw. His righteousness passes over to 
us. His sufferings become ours. This is still 
more. It would be possible to justify us 
from our sins, and leave us, like the poor 
man just saved out of prison, a wretched, 
homeless tramp, with nothing on which to 
start hf e. Christ not only saves us from the 



30 CHRIST LIFE. 

penalty of the law, but we occupy His stand- 
ing as though we had obeyed the law. What 
a vantage ground this gives us ! Dear friends, 
notwithstanding your unbelief and your diso- 
bedience in the past, Christ is willing to be 
your righteousness. ^'Christ is made unto us 
righteousness." "He was made sin for us, 
who knew no sin, that we might be mjade the 
righteousness of God in Him." This is the 
second thing that comes to us by being in 
Christ; sin cancelled, and failure and short- 
coming made up by His all-sufficient merit. 
Let us rejoice in it afresh. What a joy it 
inspires! 

y "Jesus, thy blood and rigteousness, 

My beauty are, my glorious dress." 

ACCEPTED. 

3. Again, if we are in Christ, we are ac- 
cepted by the Father. Our persons are 
accepted ; we are regarded even as He is re- 
garded, and we enter into the same place 
He occupies. It is not merely that the judge 
takes the pen and blots out our sin; nor 



IN CHRIST. 31 

even that the banker takes the pen and 
writes in his book our infinite credit ; 
but the Father throws his arms around His 
child, and takes him into Christ's very place. 
It is not a millionaire making the tramp 
rich, but a Father taking the prodigal to His 
bosom, and making him accepted in '^the 
Son of His love." That is what is meant by 
being in Christ, sin cancelled: righteousness 
given and love, even as He is loved. 

SONS OF GOD. 

4. But this is not all if we are in Christ. 
We enter next into His relationships, and 
we become to God and others what Christ is. 
And so He says : '^My Father, and your Fa- 
ther; my God, and your God." And : "As 
many as received Him, to them gave He 
power to become the Sons of God ; even to 
them that believed in His name." "Ye are 
all the children of God through faith in 
Jesus Christ." So you become what He is, 
and take His place, and are God's dear child, 
even as He is God's own dear Son. There 



32 CHRIST LIFE. 

are two sweet words used in the New Testa- 
ment to describe our sonship. One word 
means a born son. But the other means 
more. It is the word that is almost always 
applied to Christ's sonship, and is rarel3^ used 
of anybody else but Jesus ; but it is also 
used of us, to denote that when we enter 
into this union with Christ, not only are we 
born the children of God, but are accepted 
in the same sense in which Christ is; that is, 
we have not only the sonship of a new birth, 
but the place of Christ Himself. We are 
not only sons of God, but we are first-born 
sons. There is a great difference between 
the old oriental idea of the son and the first- 
born son. The first-born was the heir ; the 
others came in for something, but the old- 
est was the heir. So we are told that He is 
the first-born among many brethren; and we 
are called the ^'first-born ones." So, beloved, 
you are a child as an angel cannot be; you 
are a child as Jesus Christ is. ' 'We are come to 
the general assembly and church of the first- 
born ones, heirs of God and joint-heirs with 



IN CHRIST. 33 

Jesus Christ." So in Christ we are taken 
into His relationships, just as if you went to 
your husband's father, and though they had 
not known you, you were taken for the 
son's sake, and loved as much as he. You 
are a perfect child, and have all the rights 
of your Elder Brother. 

PRAYERS ANSWERED. 

5. Again, in Christ we are presented by 
our Great High Priest before the throne in 
our prayers and in our worship, and we are 
accepted for His sake even as He Himself is 
accepted. Ever since His ascension He has '^ 
stood at the place of intercession, and He 
represents you and me, not as though He 
were pleading with the Father, not as 
though He said : "Oh, Father, do grant this 
request for my sake," until at last the Fa- 
ther relents. His iron will gives away, and 
He says: "I will do it for your sake;" but 
Christ stands there as if it were you; and you 
stand here as if it were Christ. He hands over 
the petition in your name, and puts His name 



34: CHRIST LIFE. 

on the back; and your prayers go in to the 
Father as if He were asking. He is in His 
very person and character your representa- 
tive. And He hands your petitions in as one 
of our ministers presents our state papers in 
the courts of Europe. So Christ stands for 
us at God's right hand. He is not there in 
His private person, and we are not seen in 
our individual persons, but as a part of 
Christ. And when we come thus, as one 
with Him, we shall ask what we will and it 
shall be given. That is the meaning of the 
promise, ^^If ye abide in me, and my words 
abide in you, ye shall ask what ye will, and 
it shall be done unto you." But if ye go in 
your own merit, and pray because of your 
own strong faith, or the faith of some emi- 
nent saint who prays for you, you cannot 
claim His priesthood. But, ^Mf ye abide in 
me, and my words abide in you, ye shall ask 
what ye will and it shall be done." 

INHERIT ALL THINGS. 

6. Once again; in Christ we inherit all 



IN CHRIST. 35 

things. We sit down with Him on the 
throne, and all His riches are ours, all 
things that are to come in the ages of the fu- 
ture. He has linked His future with us; and 
never again can Christ possess anything with- 
out us. Beloved, if you can say, '^lamin 
Christ," you can add, '^ I have all things in 
Him." So Paul prays for the Ephesians 
that they may see what Christ is; 'Tar above 
principality, and power, and might, and do- 
minion, and every name that is named, not 
only in this world, but also in that which is 
to come. And he is the Head of the body, 
the fullness of Him that fillet h all in all." 
He says: '^ All that is mine is thine. " We 
iiave begun to enter into the inheritance ; 
and the ages of eternity will not exhaust its 
ineffable riches. Oh, that God may open 
your heart to know * Vhat is the hope of His 
calling, and what the riches of the glory of 
His inheritance in the saints ; and what is 
the exceeding greatness of His power, . . 
. . which He wrought in Christ when 
He raised Him from the dead, and set Him 



36 CHRIST LIFE. 

at His own right hand in the heavenly 
places, far above all principality, and 
power and might, and dominion! " ^' And 
you hath He quickened, that were dead in 
trespasses and sins, .... and hath 
raised us up together and made us sit to- 
gether in heavenly places in Christ Jesus ; 
that in the ages to come He might show the 
exceeding riches of His grace in His kindness 
toward us through Christ Jesus." 




Chapter III. 



CHEIST m US 

**Abide in me^ and I in you.'''* John xv: 3. 



|E PASS now to the second thought, 
^Christ in us." It is not only that we 
look up to yonder heaven and see Him there 
surrounded by all His retinue, endued with 
all His infinite resources, and enthroned 
above all power and dominion. Yes; that is all 
mine; but there is something better. Hav- 
ing seen all the riches of yonder throne, we 
may go up there and bring Him down here 
with it all, and have Him erect that throne 
in our very heart, and make our heart a very 
heaven. 

CHRIST IN HEAVEN. 

If you read the Epistle to the Ephesians, 
you will see this. In the first chapter, the 
apostle prays that their eyes may look up 
in Heaven and see what He has. He says, 



38 CHRIST LIFE. 

Brethren, put the glass to your eye; do you 
see that cloud? See how He ascends; He is 
above the gr^i.ve ; He is above the fetters of 
the tomb, higher He ascends; He is above 
the forces of death and hell; He is above the 
forces of nature; He is above the ranks of 
angels; He is above all the things that could 
harm or hurt you." And so he followed 
Him with the glass of faith, far above all 
principalities, and power, and all dominion, 
and every name that is named, until at last, 
weary with the dazzling glory, he pauses to 
behold his name written on all the glory he 
beholds, and cries: ^ ^Beloved, that is all yours 
and mine.'- 

CHRIST IN THE HEART. 

That is one vision. But if you read fur- 
ther you will see another vision. He has 
prayed that we might see that great sight 
of Christ in heaven. But now, he says, *' I 
pray that you may be strengthened with 
might in the inner man for something 
higher and grander." ''What is it, Paul? 



CHRIST IN US. 39 

Can there be anything grander? " '^ Oh yes, 
there is; that Tery Christ in all His kingh- 
ness and boundlessness will dwell in your 
heart by faith, that ye, being rooted and 
grounded in love, may be able to compre- 
hend with all saints what is the breadth, 
and length, and depth, and height; and to 
know the love of Christ, which passeth 
knowledge, that ye might be filled with all 
the fullness of God. Now, unto Him that is 
able to do exceeding abundantly above all 
that we ask or think, according to the power 
that worketh in us, unto Him be glory in 
the church by Christ Jesus." That is the 
other heaven. That is the heaven brought 
down from heaven and put into your 
heart. That is the second thought, Christ 
in you; the other thought is, with Christ 
up yonder. This is Christ and heaven 
descending out of heaven like a new Jeru- 
salem, and making His dwelling in your in- 
most being. So we find this second picture, 
Christ in us, rising above the first all 
through these New Testament writings. I 



40 CHRIST LIFE. 

cannot elaborate it. This is a passing glance 
in the house of the interpreter, that the pil- 
grims may be comforted for another stage 
of the journey. 

Let us read some of the passages about 
this indwelUng, for there is a foohsh contro- 
versy about it among those who are so full 
of their own hoHness that they do not seem 
to be quite able to see that there is some- 
thing greater than their goodness and grace. 

GAL. IV : 19. 

Here is one : ^ * My little children, of whom I 
travail in birth again until Christ be formed 
in you." That is his prayer for those who 
are already Christians, in Galatians iv: 19. 
My little children, you are Christians; but 
oh, I am travailing in birth now until there 
shall be something more, even the very per- 
son of Christ the living God, born right in 
you! That is more than your being new- 
born; of course you must be born; but being 
born from above, Christ Himself will be 
born in your new-born soul. That precious 



CHRIST IN US. 41 

golden casket that has been put in your 
breast will open, and in its bosom will an- 
other treasure come brighter than the golden 
casket; the flashing jewel of Christ's own 
living presence in your heart of hearts. 

Little children, born you have been, but you 
want a greater one to come and dwell in you; 
and I travail in birth until Christ be formed 
in you; not until a new and higher charac- 
ter be formed, but until a Person comes and 
sits down and lives in you, and becomes so 
one with you that the government shall be 
on His shoulder, and you shall sing in the 
empire of the heart, ^^Unto us a son is given, 
and the government shall be upon His 
shoulder ; and His name shall be called 
Wonderful, Counsellor, The Mighty God, 
The Everlasting Father, The Prince of 
Peace. Of the increase of His government 
and peace there shall be no end. " It is the 
child Christ born in the heart, so that it be- 
comes a Christ life; not only a converted life, 
but a Divine life. Not a mere Christian bat- 
tling and struggling, but a Christian taking 



42 CHRIST LIFE. 

into his bosom the Lord, never to fight His 
own battles, but to just be the temple and 
vessel for God to dwell in; so that the Infinite 
One will say, '^I will dwell in them and walk 
in them, and I will be their God and they shall 
be my people. " It is not, ^'They shall be 
my people and I will be their God," but it is 
I first; ^^I win be their God and they shall 
be my people." 

EZEKIEL XXXVI : 26. 

Another passage is Ezek. xxxivi: 25, 26. 
'^ Then wiU I sprinkle clean water upon you, 

and ye shall be clean A new heart 

also will I give you, and a new spirit will I 
put within you; and I will take away the 
stony heart out of your flesh, and I wiU give 
you a heart of flesh." This is the work of 
conversion. But now notice something far 
higher: *'I will put my spirit within you and 
cause you to walk in my statutes, and ye 
shall keep my judgments and do them." 
That is not the new heart merely; that is 
God coming in and working in the heart. 



CHRIST IN US. 43 

That is God adding His Spirit to your new 
spirit. It is Christ entering into the heart 
that He has regenerated, and causing it to 
walk in His commandments. It is a human 
spirit purified and regenerated, and then 
^ed with the Holy Ghost, and the personal 
presence of the Lord Jesus Christ. Chris- 
tian friends, have you risen to this plane? 
Do not deceive yourselves about it. Do not 
think you have all because you have learned 
to trust Christ. Have you received Him as 
the very Hfe of your life? 

Christ's teachings. 

Again, if you will turn to the New Testa- 
ment, you wiU find Christ carrying this 
thought all through His deeper teachings. 
He did not venture to give it in the begin- 
ning, because His disciples were not ready. 
He tried to give it two years earlier in the 
sixth chapter of John, and they were of- 
fended. He said: ^'I am the living bread 
which came down from heaven: if any man 
eat of this bread, he shaU live forever: and 



44 CHRIST LIFE. 

the bread which I will give is my flesh, 
which I will give for the life of the world." 
They said: ^^What mystical stuff; we cannot 
understand Him." A dear friend said to me 
that a learned theological man once told her, 
that all he saw in those words was the conv 
munion of the Lord's supper. And a great 
many cannot see that He wants us to be so 
united to Him, that He really dwells in us. 
At this time a great many said: ^^This is a 
hard saying" and went away and walked 
with Him no more. They said this is trans- 
cendental, this is sentimental. But in the 
fourteenth and fifteenth chapters of John 
He unfolds this truth once more. He says: 
^'If a man love me he will keep my words, 
and I will love him and will manifest myself 
unto him, and my Father will love him and 
we will come into him and make our abode 
with him." And again in the fifteenth 
chapter: '^I am the vine, ye are the branches. 
He that abideth in me aod I in him, the 
same bringeth forth much fruit; for without 
me ye can do nothing If ye 



CHRIST IN US. 45 

abide in me, and my words abide in you, ye 
shall ask what ye will and it shall be don« 
to you." And again He says: ''The Holy 
Ghost, whom the Father will send in my 
name, he shall teach you all things and 
bring all things to your remembrance, what- 
soever I have said unto you." And then in 
the seventeenth chapter of John He speaks 
to His Father about it. He says: ''0 right- 
eous Father, I pray for them that they may 
be one as we are one; they in me, and I in 
them." And He adds: ''That the love where- 
with thou hast loved me may be in them, 
and I in them." Did you ever notice that 
this was the last prayer Christ ever uttered 
for His people: "I in them?" That seven- 
teenth chapter of John was the subhmest 
height of love Christ's words ever reached 
in this world; and these three last words: ''I 
in them," are most precious of all. Oh, if 
you want His prayer fulfilled, beloved, enter 
into the meaning of this message and never 
stop short of it. 



46 CHKIST LIFE. 

THE EPISTLES. 

So again and again throughout the latter 
epistles, we find the same truth repeated. 
In Colossians the apostle says, '^The secret 
or mystery which has been hid for ages is 
now made manifest " Ho seems almost 
afraid to state it. Like some one goiog to 
tell us marvelously good news, he goes 
around it, and hesitates; it is so big, the 
mystery which has been hid through the 
ages, but is now made manifest to those to 
whom he has been sent to open, the secret, 
to take from His treasury the white stone 
with the name upon it which no man know- 
eth but him that receiveth it. Paul has been 
permitted to give the bride this signet ring. 
This is the secret; ''Christ in You the 
Hope of Glory." Have you received it? 
Has it been opened to you? It is the sapphire 
jewel that will outfiash the glories of the 
New Jerusalem. It is Christ in you the hope 
of glory, whatever glory can eternally 
mean. 

Paul says again to the Galatians (Gal ii; 



CHRIST IN US. 47 

20) : ' 'I have been crucified with Christ, nev- 
ertheless I live, yet not I, but Christ liveth 
in me; and the Mfe which I now live in the 
flesh, I live by the faith of the Son of God, 
who loved me, and gave Himself for me." 
That is the way Paul got it, by dying to his 
own hfe and taking Christ instead. 

And one more reference, to show you how 
it runs through the Bible. This was years 
after His ascension, and after the first pe- 
riod of Christianity had passed away. He 
came back again to the Isle of Patmos, and 
told John what he thought of that Christi- 
.anity. In that chapter of Eevelation we 
have Christ's message not to the Apostolic 
age, but to the modern church, for the Apos- 
tolic times had passed. This is what He 
said: "Behold, I stand at the door and knock. 
If any man will hear my voice and open the 
door, I will come in to him, and sup with 
him and he with me. " Do you see the vis- 
ion? A moment ago we looked, and heaven 
was full of His glory; and again we looked 
and heaven had come down to the heart of 



48 CHRIST LIFE. 

the disciple. But here is the heart of a dis- 
ciple too, for it is written to the church of 
Laodicea; the people that called themselves 
the church of God, but their heart was bar- 
red and closed; inside, self was sitting on 
the throne. '*I am rich," they say, *^and 
increased with goods, and have need of 
nothing." And outside of that heart. His 
locks wet with the dew of the morning, 
stands the pleading form of Jesus Himself 
at the threshold of the Christian's door, 
knocking and waiting in the chill, damp 
hours and saying: ^^Will you let me into my 
own house, the soul for which I died? Still 
I am willing and ready to come if you will 
open the door. I will come in and sup with 
you and you with me." Oh, is it not a pa^ 
thetic picture, a shameful picture? And 
remember it is made to the last of the seven 
churches, the closing representative of mod- 
ern Christianity; made perhaps, to the 
church of to-day, to the nominal Christian 
of to-day. He outside the door, and you 
satisfied inside to have him there. And He 



CHRIST IN US. 49 

saying: ^^Thou knowest not that thou art 
wretched and miserable, and poor, and Mind 
and naked;" while you say, ''I am rich and 
increased with goods and have need of noth- 
ing." 

JESUS ONLY. 

A friend sent me lately a paper containing 
a letter from a minister of the Gospel who 
represents what is called the holiness move- 
ment in a sense, and claims to be a teacher 
and an exponent of entire sanctification. In 
his letter he was pleased to do like a good 
many other people, viz., use some very 
strong language concerning my own teach- 
ings with regard to the Christian life. In 
these strictures he took occasion to say that 
this talk about Jesus only was an injury to 
the doctrine of sanctification, and that it 
was not sanctification at all; it was a back- 
ward step and not a forward one; that we 
had got beyond Jesus only altogether, and 
that we were in the dispensation of the 
Holy Spirit, which, to his mind, seemed to 
be more than Jesus only. I read the letter sev- 



50 CHRIST LIFE. 

eral times to get his meaning, and I am quite 
sure I have not misrepresented it. He said 
Jesus only was for the Transfiguration, but 
now we have the Spirit to lead us into this 
holiness life. But as I read anew the words 
of Jesus, I found He taught, that, when the 
Holy Ghost should come in the Christian 
dispensatioq with all His power, that was 
to be the time, the very time, when Jesus 
would be revealed and brought into the 
heart in all His fullness, and that until the 
Holy Ghost should come, and until after 
Jesus should ascend to the Father, we could 
not have Him in all His fullness. 

On the mount of Transfiguration they 
saw what they would afterwards have for- 
ever; just a little vision in advance. But 
now the vision has come into our hearts; 
and it is not only there when with weary 
step we ascend the mountain height, but it 
is here morning, noon and night, and will 
be more and more bright forever and ever- 
more. This is what Jesus says: ^^When 
this dispensation, which is about to be fully 



CHRIST IN US. 51 

ushered in after my departure, is estab- 
lished, ye shall know that I am in my Fa- 
ther, and ye in me, and I in you. And then 
shall this be fulfilled, He that loveth me shall 
he loved of my Father^ and I will love him, 
and I will manifest myself to him.^^ '^What 
do you mean, " they asked. They did not 
then understand it. They were not spiritual 
enough, and seemed to be afraid of it; they 
could not take in the great truth. And He 
said: '^When He, the Spirit, is come. He shall 
make you understand and lead you into it." 
And then He answers Judas and says: ^'If a 
man love me, he will keep my words; and 
my Father will love him, and we will come 
unto him and make our abode with him. 
We will come and live with him; we will en- 
ter his heart as we would a home, and we 
will make his heart our constant abiding 
place; we will bring our retinue; and our 
throne, and our joy with us, and dwell 
there." Now, for any man to say that this 
is a step backward, makes one feel sorry 
that there should be such an inability 



52 CHRIST LIFE. 

to understand the very promise of the 
Spirit. 

CHRIST'S OWN DEPENDENCE. 

When you remember what Christ said in 
the 5th chapter of John, you will see that 
Jesus Christ had no life of His own on the 
earth, but was constantly dependent on His 
Father for every word, and breath, and act. 
The life which we are trying to hold up in 
these teachings, is the very hfe that Christ 
Hved on this earth. Is it not absolutely 
overwhelming to hear Him say, with all His 
resources, 'The Son can do nothing of Him- 
self. I can of mine own self do nothing. As I 
hear, so I judge." Jesus who walked this 
earth as our Example, was absolutely help- 
less to do an act or to think a thought of 
Himself. And He never tried to, but He 
constantly hung on His Father's hfe; He 
drew His being from His Father, and just 
lived in Him all the time. ''As the living 
Father hath sent me, and I live by the Fa- 
ther; so he that eateth me, even he shall 
Hve by me." And so He just wants you to 



CHRIST IN US. 53 

live on Him. He is just duplicating the life 
He lived when He trod the hills of Galilee; 
utterly dependent, an empty vessel receiv- 
ing all from above. So now, He requires 
you and me to be empty vessels, receiving 
aU from Him. "In that day." What day? 
"When the Spirit of Truth is come." What 
will He bring? Will He bring something 
that will make you important; something 
that will make you so beautiful and pure 
that you will sit down and look at your holi- 
ness? Not a bit of it. Now, this is just 
what happens when the Holy Spirit comes 
into the heart. "In that day ye shaU kaow 
that I am in the Father." You shall under- 
stand how I have been Hnked with the Fa- 
ther and hung on Him for my very life. 
And ye shall learn thus to hang upon Me. 
"In that day ye shaU know that I am in the 
Father, and ye in me, and I in you. " You 
will not know that you are good and strong; 
but you will know that I am good and 
strong, and in you, as your purity and 
strength; and my being in you will bring 



54 CHRIST LIFE. 

the Father. He represents this union by 
the double figure of the sunrise, and the 
home, First, I will shine forth gloriously 
like the sunrise. The word '^manifest my- 
self" is a Greek word used in connection 
with light, conveying the same idea as 
Isaiah does when he says: ^^Arise, shine; for 
thy hght is come, and the glory of the Lord 
is risen upon thee." This is what Jesus 
means when He says: ^^I will manifest my- 
self to him." This was the closing promise 
of the Old Testament. '^Unto you that fear 
my name shall the sun of righteousness 
arise with healing in his wings. " 

The other figure is that of home. '^We 
will come and abide with him;" we will 
make his heart our dwelling place; every 
faculty shall be a chamber that we will oc- 
cupy, and the once sad and sinful heart 
shall become the palace of a king, where 
you forever shall dwell under the shadow 
of His presence 



Chapter IV. 



CHRIST IN US. CAUSES AND EFFECTS. 

*^ Abide in me, and I in you^ John xv: 3. 



UT how does He thus manifest Himself 
as He does not unto the world? I like 
to think, beloved, that He Himself brings us 
into this state. I love to think He does not 
leave us to chmb up to it alone. He does 
not build a palace among the hills and say, 
'^If you can reach it, it will be a blessed 
place," but He brings us right into the pal- 
ace. Poor Bunyan, when God came to him 
with conviction of sin, saw in his vision a 
house of beauty and of blessing, where holy 
men and women were singing together in 
the very hght of the Lord. But he was out- 
side, and could not get within. It seemed 
that a barrier of rocks rose between them and 
him. He saw how happy those people were, 
and how bright the scene, and how real the 



56 CHRIST LIFE 

joy. But he was out in the dark and cold. 
And that is the way it seems to some of 
you. They say, "It is beautiful to live a 
life like that, where it is constant rest and 
victory, and where our troubles do not 
drown us; where the great whirlpool of sin 
does not draw us in, and we have Christ all 
the time to bless us and to make us a bless- 
ing to others." Yes, they say it is a blessed 
way to live, but it is not possible for us to 
get there. And I sometimes hear teachings 
that encourage this. I remember a meeting 
in England one time, where a good man got 
up and told the people what Christ would do 
for them if they would only let Him in to 
do it. "But,'' he said, "dear friends, you 
must get prepared for it. You must get 
cleansed first, or Christ will not come. " I 
saw those hearts go down, and they said, 
"Oh, dear, how shall I g^t cleansed?" I 
longed to say, if I had had the opportunity, 
"Oh, beloved, the holiness is just what 
Christ Himself waits to give you. How are 
you to make holiness? Why, the incoming of 



CHRIST IN US. 57 

Jesus will be the holiness, if you will just 
open the door. Poor Laodicea, so lukewarm 
that He feels Hke spewing you out of His 
mouth, He says even to you, I will come in 
if you will open the door!" 

CHRIST OUR HOLINESS. 

This idea of trying to get a hohness of 
your own, and then have Christ come to re- 
ward you for it, is not His teaching. Oh, 
no, beloved, Christ is the holiness; He will 
bring the holiness, and come and dwell in 
the heart forever. I use this illustration 
often, and I do not know of a better. I 
have seen the cabins on the vacant lots in 
the upper part of the city, where the people 
have been living in the shanties for half a 
century. They try to fix them up once in a 
while. I dare say it is a good deal for one 
of those poor washerwomen to spend ten'' 
dollars to clean up and put whitewash on 
the walls, and she feels she has made it quite 
decent and respectable. That is the way 
we are trying to do. Now when one of the 



58 CHRIST LIFE. 

New York millionaires purchases that lot, 
he does not fix up the old shanty, but he 
gets a second-hand man, if he will have it, 
to tear it down, and he puts a mansion in 
its place. It is not fixing up the house that 
you need, but to give Christ the vacant lot, 
and He will excavate below our old life and 
build a house where He will live forever. 
Now that is what I mean when I say that 
Christ will be the preparation for the bless- 
ing, and make way for His own approach. It 
is as when a great Assyrian king used to set 
out on a march. He did not command the 
people to make a road, but he sent on his own 
men, and they cut down the trees, and filled 
the broken places, and leveled the moun- 
tains. So He will if we let Him be the com- 
ing King, the Author and Finisher of our 
faith. 

OUR DEATH. 

This was very sweetly expressed in the 
words of a Christian who told me that Christ 
had said to her, ^^I will be thy death, and 
I will then be thy life. *' Do not try to be 



CHRIST IN US. 59 

your own death. Take Christ to be the 
death. Oh, I know there are a hundred men 
and women here to-day, that would just rise 
a miUion leagues higher if they could grasp 
the truth. Your life would be as different 
from the present as that is from your sinful 
life. If you would grasp the thought that in 
the things you are trying to root up, cast 
away, crucify, Christ will strongly, sweetly, 
completely undertake and finish that very 
work; and that you wiU not need any longer 
to stand in the dissecting room above your 
abominable corpse, trying to cut it to pieces, 
or to tremble with the knife of the suicide, 
trying to stab yourself. Oh, beloved, you 
can be done with all that torture. You can 
trust Him to be the power to slay you, 
while you stand and look on. The only 
thing you have to do is just bravely to hand 
over yourself to-day; to put your hand on 
your will and say, '^Here is the culprit. 
Lord; I deliver him over to you. I cannot 
slay him. I want him killed. I want you 
to take these throbbing billows of passion. 



60 CHRIST LIFE. 

and still them and let peace come instead. I 
cannot do it; when I try it strangles me; it is 
like fighting the tigers of the jungle. But I 
give thee the right to slay it in thine own way, 
and here once and forever more, I yield him 
to thee. I will not want him saved again. I 
will never sympathize again. But, Lord, it 
is all right. Do it in your way. " And if you 
keep looking to Him, He will do it. Then 
He puts aside the old life so there will be 
room for His life. It must be so. The rea 
son He has not come to you is, that you 
would not let Him do this. But praise His 
name! the Spirit will wrestle against the 
flesh. Make this surrender, and let Christ 
come in in victory. 

OUR LIFE AND PURITY. 

Again: Christ will not only be the death 
of self, and the power to put your old self 
aside by His Spirit and grace, but He will 
be in you the new Ufe and power of 
your soul. He will cleanse you, and let you 
share His life in you. It is not possible to 



CHRIST IN US. 61 

explain this to one who does not know any- 
thing at all of it. But there is such a sense 
of its being a life that does not belong to 
you. When we thus receive Christ, there 
is no sense of elevation, of pride, or of our 
own goodness; but we feel like lying in the 
dust, and saying, ^^I am nothing but the 
chief of sinners." But at the same time we 
are conscious that a blessed stream of purity 
is flowing through every avenue of our be- 
ing. We are just as conscious of this as if a 
stream from the throne were pouring its 
waters over all our senses and life. When 
temptation comes He meets it by the blessed 
supply of His life and Spirit, and you are 
lifted above; the positive destroys the neg- 
ative; the heavenly repels the earthly and 
the evil. It is just the same as when on one 
of these hot summer days, going over the 
deserts of the West, suddenly the soft spring 
showers fell, and in a few moments we were 
conscious that everything was cleansed and 
purified. The grass was fresh and green. 
The flowers lifted up their heads with 



62 CHRIST LIFE. 

beauty and freshness. The air was full of 
hf e, and the sweet f ragance of nature filled 
the senses. So it is when the holiness of 
Christ comes to refresh the weary, sinful 
heart. He will do it for you; and you can 
so walk in Him, that His presence will be 
evermore like those showers, dropping upon 
your spirit and cleansing you from the very 
dust of the defiling earth. 

That is what Christ will be in us. He will 
be our purity. He will keep us holy — washed 
like the pebble by the stream and kept clean 
in its flow. 

OUR PEACE. 

And again: He is not only our death and 
our life, but He becomes our peace. You 
read much of this in the Gospels, especially 
in these chapters of John. ^^My peace I 
give unto you. Not as the world giveth, 
give I unto you. Let not your heart be 
troubled, neither let it be afraid." One of 
the chief features of this Hfe of Christ with- 
in us is that there will be tranquillity; our 
natural turbulence and quickness of irrita- 



CHRIST IN US. 63 

tion, or of determination will be stilled. We 
shall be conscious of being self -poised, or 
rather Christ poised, and there will be a sense 
of calm strength about our life. Instead of 
our dashing and storming through life, we 
will be divinely quiet, because down in the 
depths of life we shall be conscious of the 
peace of God that passeth all understanding, 
that is keeping our hearts and minds through 
Jesus Christ, and we shall be careful for 
nothing. Beloved, is it thus with you? Does 
Christ thus come into the inner chambers of 
your heart, and although there may be turbu- 
lence and tribulation outside, whisper : ' 'In me 
ye shall have peace. In the world ye shaU 
have tribulation, but in me ye shall have 
peace. Be of good cheer, I ha^ e overcome 
the world?" Beloved, have you this peace! 
It is His peace. In yourselves have you not 
tried, until the very blood started from the 
lips between the clenched teeth, until you 
sank faint from the effort? But it did not 
hold you still. I have tried to hold myself 
until I felt if I tried another moment, I 



64 CHRIST LIFE. 

should die from the exertion. But here, it 
is the peace of Christ that keeps, or as it is 
in the Greek, '^garrisons the heart." 

OUR JOY. 

And then this indwelling Christ is more 
than peace. He is also joy. ^^That my joy 
might be fulfilled in you; and that your joy 
might be full." Well, that is pretty strong 
language. ''These things," he says, ''Have 
I written, that my joy might remain in you, 
and that your joy might be full." 

His joy was unutterable. It may be ful- 
filled in you. It is the joy of the Lord in 
your heart. One of the old prophets saw it 
in the distance, and used this exquisite po- 
etic language: "The Lord thy God in the 
midst of thee is mighty." Zephaniah had 
got hold of this thought, God in the midst 
of thee, "He will rejoice over thee with joy; 
he will rest in his love; he will joy over 
thee with singing." He will be silent with 
love. In your hearts He will sometimes 
hold the tides of joy so calm and still, that 



CHRIST IN US. 65 

you will be afraid to stir for fear you break 
the spell. And then they will sweep through 
all the channels of your being. Alternately 
He will rest, and then break out in trans- 
ports of joy. The peace is abiding; 'the joy 
is occasional. When we need to have some 
terrible trial counteracted, or rise above 
some earthly disaster, then it is that the 
fountains come with their overflow. It 
came to Paul and Silas when their bones 
were aching, and they were sore from the 
stripes, and they were down in that prison. 
They could not keep it back. They sang 
their joy. It came to them when the men 
of Antioch had stoned them out of the city, 
and they were outraged and abused, and 
humiliated. Then there came another of 
these spring- tides of joy and they were filled 
with joy and the Holy Ghost. It came to 
the martyrs when they were roasting at 
slow fires, and they turned to their perse- 
cutors and said: ^^We do not feel the fires, 
the joy is so great; it fills our being and can- 
cels the pain." It was the Spirit of Him 



66 CHRIST LIFE. 

who on the eve of the cross, turned from 
His own troubles, began to comfort them, 
and said: ^^Let not your heart be troubled.'' 
Oh, dear friends, all you need to have music, 
even in the night, is to get the nightingale 
in the house. You do not need to learn to 
sing the nightingale's song, but just bring 
it in with its song. 

OUR FAITH. 

Christ in us will be our faith. We will 
be able to say, ^The hfe I now live is by the 
faith of the Son of God." When you have 
this faith it will be natural to believe God. 
You will be conscious of a supernatural 
faith, and you will be surprised how the 
faith takes hold. It is not your trying to 
have faith, it is taking Christ into your 
heart. If He is in your heart, He will live 
in you with His own life. 

OUR LOVE. 

Again: the love of God will be shed abroad 
in your heart; not the love of your heart. 



CHRIST IN US. 67 

but the love of God. If Christ is in you, you 
will sometimes be conscious of a strange 
love for Christ, and know that it is not your 
love but His. You have been conscious of 
a hard and cold nature, and of such an indif- 
ference that you felt you could have jeered 
like those wicked men who mocked Him. 
But it is Christ's own love. If you take Je- 
sus in thus, it will be a delight to love Him 
and to love God. And you will have new 
loves and friendships to aU men, loving in 
and for Him only. 

OUR WISDOM. 

Again: if we have this indwelling Christ, 
He will be our wisdom. He will in some way 
touch our very thoughts. He will enter into 
our conceptions of truth, and make us feel, 
^^I cannot even grasp this truth, but Christ 
spreads it before me by His own higher 
knowledge." You will have His intuitions 
about. the things you ought to do, or His 
holding you back from that which He 
would not have you do; and all in perfect 



68 CHRIST LIFE. 

harmony with your nature; so blended with 
the faculties He has given you, that the 
thoughts and impulses will seem to be your 
own. 

OUR POWER. 

He wiU be your power. He will be the 
strength of God in you. Paul says, '^I la- 
bor according to His working, which work- 
eth in me mightily." So it will not be your 
doing, but Christ enabhng you, Christ giv- 
ing you power to work for others, and for 
the effectual building up of His kingdom. 
It is God's very power; the power of Pente- 
cost; the power, not of your experience, but 
the conscious presence of the Mighty One in 
you, so that, while you are a weak woman, 
or an imperfectly educated man, you will be 
so filled with the consciousness, ^^I am 
speaking in the strength of God," that you 
will know the word of God shall not return 
to Him void. 

It is blessed to work and speak and* pray 
in the power of Christ. And it is mockery, 
and worse than vain, to attempt it without. 



CHRIST IN US. 69 

Christ will be your power, ^*A11 power is 
given unto me in heaven and in earth, and 
lo! I am with you alway." 

OUR PRAYER. 

Again, Christ in you will be your prayer. 
He will intercede within you. And there 
will be sometimes the strong groaning and 
tears of His own Gethsemane, and again the 
effectual prayer that claims all things in His 
name. 

OUR PRAISE. 

Again, He will be your praise, as well as 
your prayer. He will come to the heart 
after it has presented its petition, and touch 
it with the voice of thanksgiving, enabling 
you to bless God for the answer that is com- 
ing. 

OUR HEALTH. 

Again, if Christ is in your heart. He will 
be your physical strength and life. He will 
inspire your \ital functions with energy, 
and make you know the life of Christ made 
manifest in your mortal flesh. 



10 CHRIST LIFE. 

OUR PATIENCE 

Again, if Christ be in you He will be your 
patience. One large part of Christ's life was 
suffering; so a large part of yours will be 
suffering with Him. That cross wiU also 
rest upon the Mount Calvary of your life, 
and you will gladly share it with Him; not 
suffering needlessly, not suffering to please 
the enemy, but suffering that kind of sor- 
row that is turned into cups of cold water 
for others, that helps to carry their burdens, 
that takes the needs of others and bears 
them through places where they would 
sink, that helps Him bear His heavy load 
for the suffering hearts of the world. And 
when it comes, as it came to Him, from op- 
posing men and devils, then He will enable 
you to become more than conquerors. 

When I was in Scotland I went a long 
way out of my path to visit the city of 
Stirling. Having only a short time to stay, 
I went at once to the spot I sought — the old 
cemetery — and, as I gazed upon that gray 
monument, looking back through the mist 



CHRIST IN tJS. Yl 

of years, it brought to my mind the story of 
the Covenanters. It was the monument of 
Margaret Wilson. It told how that dear 
young saint, that girl in her teens, held so 
to her love of Jesus that the pleadings of fa- 
ther and mother and friends kept her not 
back from death. ^^Only one little word, 
Margaret, one little word, and your life 
shall be spared," they said. ^^ I canna speak 
the word the word that shall dishonor Je- 
sus," she rephed. ^ ^Remember your father's 
grief," he begged the night before she died. 
She stroked his gray hairs, and said, ^^I 
canna speak the words you bid me speak." 
And then the next morning they took her 
out, those rude and hard men, and tied her 
to the stake and put it in the sea. And 
they tied another to a stake, a gray-haired 
old saint, and they put her a little farther 
out in the wild sea, so that Margaret Wilson 
could first see her die. And they said, 
'^Margaret Wilson, if you speak that word 
you shall be free.'' And then they left her 
to the billows of the rising sea. Nearer and 



Y2 CHRIST LIFE. 

nearer they came to the aged martyr; they 
reached her waist, they reached her shoul- 
ders, they swept her face, but she stood 
there with her countenance hf ted to heaven. 
And they said, ^'Margaret Wilson, don't 
you see her? Won't you still recant?" And 
she said, ''No; I do not see her; I only see 
Jesus Christ in His suffering servant wrest- 
ling there;" and as she Hfted her eyes the 
chariot of the Lord was waiting to bear the 
martyr home. That is our watchword, 
''Christ in one of His members suffering 
there; not I, but Christ." Thus can we 
overcome; thus can we live; thus can we 
suffer. Oh, let Him be our power to suffer, 
and to overcome even sorrow itself through 
His name! 

OUR WILL. 

Another and last thought: If Christ be 
thus in us. He will be in the hardest part of 
our being, our will. This is the helm of 
character. But Christ will take the will and 
bend it until it shall be no longer stubborn. 
He shall make it yield to His will and bend 



CHRIST IN US. 73 

to what He choses. He will make it de- 
lightfully spontaneous. When I was a lit- 
tle fellow I used to make my own sled run- 
ners, and I used to break piece after piece. 
But one day a carpenter told me there was 
a better way. I took it to him, and he put 
it in the steam boiler, and then it would bend 
any way. Christ does not want to break 
your will, but He wants to put it in the fire 
of His love, and work in you to will and to 
do of His good pleasure. And then He will 
take it and make it strong. When I got 
my little runner bent, the carpenter showed 
how to make it so firm that it would not go 
back again. So Christ can make your will 
like adamant. He can set your face like a 
flint. He can put in your heart that which 
shall make you like a rock. May He show 
you how simple and complete is His provis- 
ion for all this! He will show it. He will 
do it. Is there a hard heart here this morn- 
ing longing for it? God expected you to fail. 
God is not chiding you for failing. God is 
not standing by you this morning taking any 



Y4 CHRIST LIFE. 

pleasure in it. He knew that, like all His 
self-confident children, you would betray 
Him in the hour of temptation. He let it 
come that He might give you something 
better, that He might lift you into His way. 
And now He is able to keep you from 
stumbling. He is able to present you fault- 
less before His presence with exceeding joy. 
Let me plead with you, let Christ plead 
with you, that He may be your strength. 
Go to Him this moment, and do not leave 
your knees until you can say, '^He is for 
me. He is in me, and I can do all things 
through Christ that strengtheneth me." 



^' Jrt 1o -^- 



Chapter V. 



ABIDING. 

^'^ Abide in me and I in you.''^ — Johnxv:3. 



And now, little children, abide in Him: that when 
He shall appear, we may have confidence, and not be 
ashamed before Him at His coming. — 1 Jno. ii: 28. 

T would seem as though John meant that 
only little children could abide in Him; 
that only when we get to be little can we 
know the Lord in His fullness; only when 
we cease from our manly and womanly 
strength and become dependent can we 
know His strength and independence as our 
support and stay. John counted himself 
among the little children, because he says 
'^we" when he addresses us. He was in- 
deed a little child in spirit from the time 
Boanerges died and John laid his head on 
Jesus' breast to be strong no more in him- 
self, and to be seen no more apart from the 
enfolding arms of Jesus. 



76 CHRIST LIFE. 

We have seen Christ in His personal 
glory; we have seen what it is to be in Him 
and to have Him in us, and now we want 
to have it stereotyped. When a man writes 
a book he puts it in stereotype to last for- 
ever; so John says, " Little children abide in 
Him, that when He shall appear we may 
have confidence.'' 

Let us speak very particularly and plainly 
about how we may maintain this abiding. 
You have surrendered; you have given up 
your strength as well as your will; you have 
consented that henceforth He shall support 
your Mfe. Like a true bride you have given 
up your very person, your name, your em- 
ployment, so that now He is to be your 
Lord and your Provider; your very life is 
merged in Him, your personality is uni- 
ted in Him, and He becomes your Head 
and your All in All. Now, beloved, how is 
this to be maintained ? He says we are to 
abide, and He will abide in some sense ac- 
cording to our abiding. '^ Abide in me and 
I in you;" as much as to say, ''If you will 



ABIDING. YT 

abide in me, there will be no difficulty about 
my abiding in you." 

Let us speak of some of the difficulties in 
this life of abiding. 

LIVE BY THE MOMENT. 

First, it must be a momentary life, not a 
current that flows on through its own mo- 
mentum; but it is to be a succession of little 
acts and developments. You have Him for 
the moment, and you have Him perfectly, 
you are perfectly saved this moment; you 
are victorious this moment; and that which 
fills this moment is large enough to fill the 
next, so that if you shall renew this fellow- 
ship every moment, you shall abide in Him. 
Have you learned this? The failures in your 
hfe mostly come through lost moments, 
broken stitches, little interstices, little cleav- 
ings in the rock where the drops of water 
trickle down and run into a torrent; but if 
you lose no steps and no victories, you shall 
abide in constant triumph. 

First, then, learn this secret, that you are. 



78' CHRIST LIFE. 

not sanctified for all time so that there will 
be no more need for grace and victory; but 
you have grace for this moment, and the 
next moment, and by the time life is spent, 
you shall have had a whole ocean of His 
grace. It may be a very little trickling 
stream at first; but let it flow on every mo- 
ment, and it shall become a boundless ocean 
before its course is done. 

DEFINITE ACTS OF WILL. 

Next, this abiding must be established by 
a succession of definite acts of will, and of 
real, fixed, steadfast trust in Christ. It 
does not come as a spontaneous and irresis- 
tible impulse that carries you whether you 
will or not, but you have begun by an act of 
trust, and hold and repeat it until it becomes 
a habit. Now it is very important to realize 
this. A great many think, when they get 
a blessing, that it ought to sweep them on 
without further effort. It is not so. An 
act of will, an act of choice is the real helm 
of spiritual life. You were saved from sin 



ABIDING. 79 

by actually choosing Jesus as your Saviour; 
you were consecrated by definitely giving 
yourself and taking Him for everything. 
So now, beloved, you must get the helm 
fixed, and press on moment by moment 
still choosing to trust Christ, until at last it 
comes to be as natural as your breathing. 
It is like a man rescued from drowning; 
when they take him from the water breath- 
ing seems to be stopped; at first, when it re- 
turns, it is not spontaneous, but a succes- 
sion of labored pumpings; they breathe the 
air in and they breathe the air out, perhaps 
for half an hour; then an involuntary ac- 
tion is noticed, and nature comes and makes 
the act spontaneous; and soon the man is 
breathing without thinking. But it came 
by a definite effort at first, that those lungs 
should act, and by-and-by it became sponta- 
neous. So with Christ: if you would have 
this abiding in Him become spontaneous, 
you must make it a spiritual habit. The 
prophet speaks of the mind '^stayed on 
Grod,'^ and David says, *'his heart is fixed, 



80 CHRIST LliPE. 

trusting in the Lord." We begin by deter- 
mining, and we obey Him no matter what 
it costs; and by-and-by the habit is es- 
tabhshed. 

THE LAW OF HABIT. 

Then comes the third principle; habit at 
length becomes established. Every habit 
grows out of a succession of little acts. No 
habit comes full-grown into your life; it 
grows like the roots of the tree, like the fi- 
bres of the flesh, or as the morsels of food 
you swallow are absorbed into your life. You 
see a man going steadily along in a course 
of life, but that course of life was estab- 
lished by the habit of years. The stenogra- 
pher at my side sits down and takes these 
words as fast as I speak them. At first 
it was clumsy and slow work; but at 
length it became a habit, and now he does 
not have to stop and think how to make a 
character; they come to him as naturally as 
the words come to my lips. So it is with 
writing; we remember how painfully at 
first we had to hold the pen^ but we now 



ABIDING. 81 

dash off our signature, and it is always the 
same; our friends know it, our banker 
knows it; and it can*be identified as ours. 
How did it come about? Because for years 
we have made the same marks. This is the 
reason, beloved, that it pays to plod; the 
habit becomes at length a necessity, and be- 
comes easier as it grows. 

It is so with evil; it is easier for a man to 
go down the longer he goes down, and it is 
easier for him to go up the longer he goes 
up. And so we hear some men praising the 
Lord instinctively; they have done it so 
much that it has become natural. And so 
it is with looking to Jesus; it is like the 
movement of the eye, the lid moves in- 
stantly, and the Bible uses it as a figure of 
God's care. ^^He shall keep you as the ap- 
ple of the eye." Before the dust can hurt 
the eye, the little curtain falls over the ten- , 
der ball. So we find ourselves in life instinc- 
tively holding our tongues when we would 
have felt like talking. So we can discern 
the very scent of evil before it comes, in- 



82 CHRIST LIFE. 

stinctively sending a prayer to heaven be- 
fore the danger reaches us. Thus also will, 
the habit of obedience be formed; it comes 
by doing steadily, persistently and faithfully 
what the Lord would have you do. He is 
putting you to school in these little trials, 
until He gets the habit confirmed, and made 
easy, and natural. 

SELF-REPRESSION. 

Again, if we would abide in Christ we 
must continually study to have no confi- 
dence in self. Self -repression must be ever 
the prime necessity of Divine fullness and 
efficiency. Now you know how quickly you 
spring to the front when any emergency 
arises. You know how easy it was for 
Peter to spring then with his sword drawn 
before he knew whether he was able to meet 
the foe or not. When something in which 
you are interested comes up, you say what 
you think under some sudden impulse, and 
then perhaps you have weeks of taking 
back your thought, and taking the Lord's 



ABIDING. 83 

instead. It is only when we get out of the 
way of the Lord that He can use us. And 
so, beloved, this abiding in Christ, means 
abiding out of self, always suspending your 
will about everything until you have looked 
at it and said: '' Lord, what is your will? 
what is your thought about it?" When you 
have got that, you and He are not at cross- 
purposes; and there is a blessed sense of har- 
mony. Those who thus abide in Christ 
have the habit of reserve and quiet; they 
are not rattling and reckless talkers, they 
will not always have an opinion about every- 
thing, and they will not always know what 
they are going to do. There will be a def- 
erential holding back of judgment, and 
walking softly with God. It is our head- 
long, impulsive spirit that keeps us so con- 
stantly from hearing and following the 
Lord. 

DEPENDENCE. 

Again, if we would abide in Christ, we 
must remember that Christ has undertaken 
not one or two things, the emergencies of 



84 CHRIST LIFE. 

life, but everything; and so we must culti- 
vate the habit of dependence on Christ for 
everything. It is falling back on Him and 
finding Him everywhere; recognizing that 
Christ has undertaken the business of your 
Christian hfe, and there is not a difficulty 
that comes up, but He has undertaken to 
carry you through; He ha^ become respon- 
sible if you let Him have His way and hold 
the reins, and you just rest. 

RECOGNIZING HIS PRESENCE 

Again, if you abide in Christ, you must 
cultivate the habit of always recognizing 
Him as near, always at hand in your heart 
of hearts, so that you need not get on your 
knees and have an awful time to find Him, 
reaching out to the distant heavens and 
wondering where He has gone; but He is 
right here; His throne is in your heart; His 
resources are at hand. The Master is here; 
just speak to Him as with you now. There 
may be no delicious sensation of God's pres- 
ence, but just accept the fact that the Spirit 



ABIBING. 85 

of God is in your heart, and act and speak 
accordingly. Bring everything to Him, and 
soon the consciousness will be real and de- 
lightful. We do not begin with the feeling, 
we begin with acting as though He were 
here. So, beloved, if you would abide in 
Christ, treat Him as though He were at 
home with you; as though He were in you, 
and you in Him, and He will respond to 
your trust, and honor your confidence. 

GOD IN EVERYTHING. 

Again, if you would abide in Christ, you 
must recognize that somehow Christ is in 
everything that comes in yourhfe; and that 
everything that comes in the course of 
Providence is in some sense connected with 
the will of God. That trying circumstance 
was not chance, something with which 
Christ had nothing to do, and which you can 
only protest against and wonder how God 
can sit on the throne and let such things be. 
You must believe that God led in it, and 
though the floods have lifted up their heads 



86 CHRIST LIFE. 

on high, yet God sits on the throne, and is 
mightier than the great sea billows and the 
noise of many waters. You must beheve 
that He will cause the wrath of man to 
praise Him, and the remainder thereof will 
He restrain. You may say: *^God is our 
refuge and strength, a very present help in 
trouble. Therefore will not we fear, though 
the earth be removed, and though the 
mountains be carried into the midst of the 
sea; though the water thereof roar and be 
troubled, though the mountains shake with 
the swelling thereof." I do not say that you 
are to regard everything as the very best 
thing that you would choose, or the very 
best thing that God ultimately has for you; 
but it is allowed, either that God may show 
you His power to overcome it, or else that 
it may teach you some lesson of hoKness, of 
trust, of tranquility, of courage. It is some- 
thing that under the circumstances fits into 
God's purposes; and therefore you are not 
to look for different circumstances, but to 
conquer in these already around you. You 



ABIDING. 87 

are not to run away, and say: " I will abide 
in Christ when I get where I want to be," 
but you must abide with Christ in the ship 
and the storm, as well as in the harbor of 
blessing. Eecognize that everything is per- 
mitted to God, and that He is able to make 
all things work together; and not only so, 
but to make you know they are for your 
good, and that they are working out His 
purposes. 

ATATCH THE OUTWARD SENSES. 

Again, if you would abide in Christ, we 
must be very watchful of our senses. There 
is nothing that so easily sets us wandering, 
and leads us out into dangerous fields, and 
by-path meadows, as the senses of the body. 
How often our eyes will take us away! 
Walking down the street you find a thou- 
sand things to call you away from a state of 
recollection. I do not believe it is possible 
for us to take everything in in this life. 
Some peoples' eyes are like a spider's, they 
see behind and before and on every side. 



88 CHRIST LIFE. 

You know Solomon says: ''Let thine eyes 
look right on, and let thine eyelids look 
straight before thee." It is this letting the 
world in, no matter by what door it comes, 
that separates us from the presence of our 
Lord. So with our ears. If you listen to 
one-hundreth part of the conversation even 
of Christians you will be thoroughly defiled; 
and so you have to hold your ears, and your 
eyes, and live in a little circle; you have not 
to manage half so manj^ things as you un- 
dertake to sometimes, and about which you 
have so much anxiety. I sometimes illus- 
trate it by a little figure which I told one 
day to a friend whose hand was trying to 
hold the reins of every horse that was run- 
ning away, whose eyes were all around the 
heavens and the earth, and whose ears were 
as busy as if they were listening to the wires 
at the Union Telephone Station, with voices 
coming from the east, and from the west, 
and from the north and south. It is so with 
many of us; we have got despatches coming 
to us every hour of the day^ and they are 



ABIDING. 89 

like some of the telegrams that come to the 
columns of our daily newspapers. Well, I 
said to this friend: ^' There is a little spider 
called the water spider, and it lives in the 
water, away down in the mud lake of the 
marsh. It just goes down a few inches, 
and lives there all the time. You ask how 
does it oreathe and live in the water ? Oh, 
it has a strange apparatus by which it is 
able to gather around itself a bubble of air a 
few times larger than its body; it goes to the 
surface and fills it with air and goes down, 
and this little house forms an atmosphere for 
it, and there it builds its nest, and rears its 
young; and you know where the air is the 
water cannot get in, and so it is as safe in 
its little house as if built of stone; and with 
the dark water around it, it is just as pure 
as if it lived above in the clear air of 
heaven." I said to this friend: ^^You just 
get into your little bubble and stay ihere. 
Take from Jesus the life He has for you and 
hve it simply and faithfully and don't go 
spluttering around the whole pool. If the 



90 CHRIST LIFE. 

spider did, the bubble would break, and it 
would perish with its young. You stay in 
your own little circle, Jesus and you, and 
you will have plenty to do, and it will be dry 
as a nest, and sweet as the air of heaven; 
and although there is sin around you, and 
hell beneath you, and although men are 
striving and tempting and sinning, you in 
your Httle circle will be as safe as if in 
heaven." 

INTERNAL PRAYER. 

Again, if we would abide in Him we 
must cultivate the habit of internal prayer, 
and communing with God in the heart. 
We must know the meaning of such words 
as '^God is a spirit, and those that worship 
Him must worship Him in spirit and in 
truth." ^'In everything give thanks, for 
this is the will of God concerning you." 
This habit of momentary prayer, not in 
words, but in thought, is one of the secrets 
of abiding. There is an old word the mys- 
tics used; — I hke it; — it is the word ^^recollec- 
tion." We would call it a collected spirit. 



ABIDING. 91 

Dear old Fenelon talks about it, and bids us 
keep a recollected spirit. This is the opposite 
of a runaway spirit; — you know what that is. 
It is a spirit poised like yonder fowl 
in the air, its wings expanded ready to go 
anywhere, calmly collected, watching and 
resting too. 

VIGILANCE. 

I beheve the very essence of this is another 
word, which I want to give you in connec- 
tion with abiding; it is vigilance; it is watch- 
ing; being wide awake. It is the oppo- 
site of drifting. It is the spirit of 
holding, and looking, and being ever on 
guard and yet sweetly held by the Lord. 
Now I do not mean that you have to do aU 
the holding and watching; I mean you are 
to have your hand on the helm, and Christ 
will do the steering. It is like yonder brakes 
on the train— the brakeman only touches 
the lever and sets it in motion; the engi- 
neer does not have to make the train go, he 
has only to turn on the steam. You and I 
do not need to fight. We have only to give 



93 CHRIST LIFE. 

the word, and the powers of heaven follow 
it up if it is in the name of Jesus. So we 
shall ever he in fellowship with Him, mo- 
ment hy moment, until at last He becomes 
the element of our very life. 

LET GOD LEAD. 

Again, if we would abide in Christ we 
must stop trying to have God help us, and 
fall into God's way and let Him lead. We 
must get the idea out of our spirit that we 
have chosen to serve Christ and we have got 
to have Christ help us. We must see, rather, 
that we have come into His channels and H^ 
is carrying us because He cannot go any 
other way. If you get on the bosom of the 
Mississippi you have to go down the river; 
if you are in the bosom of God, you have to 
go with Him. It would be hard to take the 
Mississippi and run it up to Chicago; it 
would be hard to compel God to run your 
way; but only surrender yourself to God, 
and your Hf e wiU be as strong as omnipotence 
and as sweet as heaven. 



ABIDING. 93 

SURPRISES. 

We should, perhaps, speak of the surprises 
that come. Sometimes the Lord lets sudden 
temptations sweep over you to put you on 
your guard; and if such things come into 
your life, take them as from Him, sent to 
put you on the watch and give you some 
hint, like the falHng of the eye-lash to let 
you know that the eye is threatened. But, 
beloved, if you keep very close to Christ I do 
not believe that these things will come as 
quickly as you think. They spring often 
from some heedlessness of your own. You 
were getting out of your way, and were not 
where the Lord expected you to be, and, 
perhaps, the surprise came to let you know 
that you had been in the enemy's country. 
If we abide in Him, all evil will have to 
strike us through Him. Perhaps you were 
a little out of Him, and Christ let it come to 
frighten you back to Him, just as the shep- 
ard's dogs are sent to drive the lambs into 
the fold. Better that you should get a little 
fall than ultimately to meet with disaster. 



94 CHRIST LIFE. 

FAILURES. 

But if, notwithstanding all your care, you 
make a mistake, if you have a disaster or a 
discouragement, don't say, ^'I have lost my 
blessing. I have found this Hfe impracti- 
cable;" but remember that if we who abide 
in Him confess our sins, " He is faithful and 
just to forgive us our sins and cleanse us 
from all unrighteousness." '^And now, httle 
children, abide in Him. " 

HOW TO MAKE GOD REAL. 

A friend asked me the question the other 
day, how to make God real. God is not real 
to many people. He does not seem so real 
to that man as his difficult task; He does not 
seem so real to that woman as her hard 
work and her trials; He does not seem so 
real to that sufferer as his sickness. How 
shall we make Him real? The best manner 
^ I know is to take Him into the things that 
are real. That headache is real. Take Him into 
it and He will be as real as the headache, and a 
great deal more, for He will be there when the 



ABlDINa. 95 

headache is gone. That trial is real, it has * 
burned itself into your Hfe; God wiU be 
more so. That washing and ironing are 
real; take God into your home, and He will 
be as real. That is what makes Him real, — 
to hnk Him into your life as the banyan 
tree grows. First, it shoots up a branch to 
heaven, and then other branches grow back 
and down into the ground and become 
rooted in the earth, and by-and-by there are 
a hundred branches interwoven and inter- 
laced from the ground so that the storm and 
the winds cannot disturb it, and even the si- 
moon of the Indian Ocean cannot tear it up. 
It is rooted and bound together by hundreds 
of interlacing roots and branches. And so 
when God comes and saves a soul He plants 
one branch; but when He comes and de- 
hvers, and helps in your difficulties, each 
one is another branch; and thus your life be- 
comes rooted and bound to God by a hun- 
dred fibres, and all the power of hell cannot 
break it. 



06 CHRIST LIFE. 

"Nearer and nearer stiU to me 
Thou living and loving Saviour be, 
Brighter the vision of thy face. 
More glorious still thy words of grace ; 
TiU life shall be transformed to love, 
A heaven below, a heaven above." 




Wi 



